In sports today, chances are the game’s not over ’til there’s another television commercial. This chapter concentrates on sports, which is as much an entertainment business – involving media and other licensing rights, player representations, marketing, and merchandising – as any thus far discussed. Sports easily transcends cultures, borders, demographics, and different device technologies in part because the contests are always best consumed in real time – while the games are actually played. All of this underscores the importance of links to broadcasting, cable, and wagering segments and illustrates how tax-law considerations are at the core of many sports business decisions. But it also indicates why professional sports may be the only business “where the owners want regulation, and labor – the players – want the free market.”

Early innings

Trivia buffs might delight in learning that the first recorded Olympic running event occurred in Olympia, Greece, in 776 BC. Yet by then sporting activities had already been developing for thousands of years – from the earliest days of history and from a time when spears, clubs, and bows and arrows were used to provide food and shelter.

It has indeed been a long journey from those early, primitive times to today’s organized professional leagues, whose games are instantly televised to a global audience. But actually, itwas not until the middle of the nineteenth century that the modern organizations first evolved, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom.